Cities can be as status conscious as the rest of us. If your town doesn't have
a slick City Hall or a multiplex cinema, you're not keeping up.

But do you know what the hot new item is? The plasma TV of civic improvements?
A library.

Walnut Creek is the latest Bay Area city to propose a new library, an
$18 million, 42,000-square-foot showcase. With the funding up for a vote
in next month's election, residents are debating the wisdom of putting
so much money and effort into what some think might be an antiquated
concept. Didn't the Internet take over what librarians used to do?

"That was the standard question five years ago for library administrators
when they interviewed for a job,'' says Julie Casamajor, assistant director
for public services at the new Livermore library. "What is going
to happen to libraries now that modern technology has taken over?''

Actually, exactly the opposite has happened. In the past five years,
despite the overwhelming presence of the Internet, libraries are experiencing
record attendance.

Nope. Nothing like that. The new library is a sprawling, open, friendly
place where people go to surf the Web on a Wi-Fi connection, sip a latte
and check out a movie. There are still books, of course, but nationally
the most popular items to be checked out of libraries are DVDs. Traditionalists
are horrified.

"They miss that old, quiet library, if there ever was one,'' says
John Berry III, editor in chief of Library Journal, a magazine that tracks
new trends in the field. "I don't remember ever being shushed in
a library, but maybe I was.''

He certainly won't be shushed now. New libraries like Santa Clara's
Central Park or Livermore's new Civic Center Library have gathering rooms
for groups, coffee shops and loads of computers.

Berry says some of
the new libraries are "like a theme park.''
Some of them, he says, have a traditional reading room, but one that
is "off to the side, with a Disney (meaning fake) fireplace.''

It wasn't long ago that it seemed the library was as outdated as a card
catalog. (Almost all libraries use computers to find and track books
now.) When Google announced in December that it was planning to put the
contents of leading libraries online, for free, it seemed to be the long-anticipated
end to the brick-and-mortar library.

It isn't just the sparkling new facilities either. Although Walnut Creek
officials hope Measure R, the bond on the Nov. 8 ballot, will get the
two-thirds majority needed to pass, senior branch librarian Cindy Brittain
says they are already marking a surge in use. From 2001 to 2004, attendance
is up 75 percent.

"Use of the library is up dramatically right now,'' Berry says. "More
than in years. We think it is an economic decision. The library is a
hell of a lot cheaper than other forms of education and entertainment.''

Just to reinforce Berry's comments, consider the $44 million Santa Clara
facility, which opened in April 2004. Library cards have more than doubled,
and attendance topped 1 million in the first year it was open.

Livermore, which opened a 52,700-square-foot showplace in June 2004,
found that attendance was up 80 percent a year later and is averaging
57,000 visits a month. For a town of just 78,000 people, that's impressive,
although 85 percent of them have a library card and have used it in the
past two years, Casamajor says.

If you are surprised, you are not alone.

"Frankly,'' says Brittain, "I
don't think people in the library world believed it either at first.''

The attendance boom has sparked new building. For example, in Lafayette,
a new library is on the drawing board that will be a showstopper. Helped
by an $11.9 million grant from the state, the Lafayette Library and Learning
Center will cost an estimated $31 million, cover 62,000 square feet and
is scheduled to open in 2008. The building will also house the Glenn
Seaborg Learning Consortium, an educational program that will promote
workshops, lectures, films and programs for both adults and children.

So why is the library thriving?

"My guess is that on the Internet you can get started, but you
almost immediately run into books,'' Brittain says. "To go in depth,
you need the library.'' As an example, Brittain suggests the middle school
student who did a report on the Holocaust. But he got all of his information
from a neo-Nazi Web site.

Visitors also come
to rent DVDs -- "They are leaping off the shelves,''
says Casamajor -- and just to hang out, particularly in the new bookstore-like
cafes. Casamajor says they often have businessmen who drop by for an
hour or two of peace and quiet.

And the Internet? It turns out to be the library's best friend. Visitors
use the library computers, and seniors come to learn computer skills
in workshops and classes. So was everyone wrong about the threat of the
Internet? Wouldn't be the first time.

Brittain keeps a copy of a news story at her desk. It details the concern
that television is going to be the end of libraries. It is dated 1953.